


Can You Imagine?

by DarkMasterofCupcakes



Series: Glimbow Prompts [2]
Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Adora is mentioned, Apologies, Could not resist a Hamilton reference, Crying, F/M, Forgiveness, Hugs, Takes place during season 5, but no spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:27:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24132079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkMasterofCupcakes/pseuds/DarkMasterofCupcakes
Summary: After being freed from Horde Prime's ship, Glimmer and Bow have a talk in which they both address feelings of guilt they have over how things had been between them following the events of the portal and Glimmer's coronation.
Relationships: Bow & Glimmer (She-Ra), Bow/Glimmer (She-Ra)
Series: Glimbow Prompts [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1646905
Comments: 5
Kudos: 72





	Can You Imagine?

It was hard to believe she was actually home again…but at the same time, it felt like she’d barely been gone at all. There hadn’t really been much of a way to keep track of time when she was a prisoner on Horde Prime’s ship – or a “guest” as he had insisted on calling her. 

Glimmer knew better, though; she knew what a guest was and what a prisoner was, and it was easy enough to see which side of the coin she fell upon, regardless of the terminology the conqueror had used. 

She took a deep breath and allowed herself to fall backwards, activating her power almost without thinking and vanishing before she could hit the ground, only to appear inches above her bed half a second later. The feeling of the plush mattress and the pillows against her back made her wish that she never had to leave ever again. It wasn’t that she hadn’t always appreciated her bed, but after she’d spent so much time on the much more firm – and less comfortable – mattresses found on the ship, she realized just how much she’d missed being here. 

As such, she couldn’t help but feel a surge of annoyance flash through her body when the sound of someone knocking on her bedroom door interrupted her relaxation. 

Glimmer cracked one eye open, waiting to see if whoever was knocking would leave. Another knock gave her the answer. 

“Come in,” she called down, just barely managing to disguise the irritation in her voice. 

The door opened up shortly after, with whoever had been on the other side stepping into the room and apparently shutting the door behind them. Based on that behavior, she already had an idea of who had come to see her, even before she heard Bow’s voice calling her name, almost cautiously. 

The tone in Bow’s voice made her feelings of irritation towards her interrupted rest vanish completely, replaced by a strong sensation of guilt. They used to be so close, and now he seemed nervous to even speak to her; and she knew it was her fault. 

It was all because of how she’d acted the last time they had seen each other before she’d been a complete idiot and activated the Heart of Etheria, despite both him and Adora (Glimmer felt herself flinch, thinking of Adora – that was another meet up she knew had to happen, but she was more than willing to put that one off for a bit longer) warning her that trying to use the weapon would only end badly. 

She did her best to push away those fears before popping down to the ground. Normally she would have just called down to Bow, invited him to hop up the stairs so they could sit in her bed together and talk. Right now, however, it just felt like doing that was crossing a line – one that she wished wasn’t there, but she knew she couldn’t ignore; and she was a little afraid to find out just how thickly drawn it was. 

Still, since Bow was already here… 

“How’ve you been doing?” she asked, hoping that she didn’t sound even half as worried as she felt. This was already going to be hard enough without him knowing she was afraid to even talk to him.

For the briefest of moments, she thought a look of concern passed over his face, and Glimmer felt her heart sink a little; but it was such a quick look that she wasn’t even completely positive it had happened, so she tried not to let it bother her too much. Tried being the key word. 

“I’m alright” Bow answered. “But…I think I should be asking you that question, considering…everything.” 

That one word said about a million things, considering she knew exactly what he meant by “everything”.

It wasn’t just the time she’d spent trapped on that ship – it was everything that had happened since her mom…since the whole thing with the portal. It may have even been some of the stuff that happened before that, but there was no doubt that the portal had been a major turning point for her life…and, as much as she didn’t want to think about it, it was also probably a major turning point for their friendship. 

Glimmer just hoped that it hadn’t been the beginning of the end. If it was…well, maybe she deserved it, but that didn’t mean she knew what to do now; Bow had been one of the few constants in her life from basically the beginning, so if she’d lost him for good over everything that happened….

Glimmer glanced at her friend, who was still waiting for a response. At this point, there was no denying the very clear expression of worry that was on the young man’s face. 

She felt so bad for worrying him that, for a moment, she thought about lying – about saying that she was perfectly fine, despite it all. But, this was Bow – of all people, she knew that he deserved honesty from her right now. Besides, if she couldn’t trust him with this right now, who could she trust?

“I’m just happy to be back home, really. But, other than that…I guess I’m doing about as well as I can be right now.” Which, she knew, probably wasn’t that great; obviously it was better than she could have been doing, but considering everything that had been going on recently, the best she could be doing still wasn’t exactly amazing. 

“You wanna talk about it at all?” Bow asked, sounding more than a little hesitant to even say the words. The reluctance in his voice was contrasted slightly by his expression, which betrayed the concern he was very clearly still feeling. 

And a small part of Glimmer felt almost relieved at seeing him look at her like that – like he cared about her, in spite of how she’d acted the last time they’d spoken to each other. 

However, the offer to talk about what was bothering her made her stomach knot up uncomfortably. 

She glanced away, not quite being able to look at him as she quickly said,  
“Not really.” 

Bow still looked a bit worried, but he just nodded, deciding not to press the issue any further. Glimmer had a feeling he might ask about it later, and maybe then she’d want to talk about everything that was going through her brain at the moment; for now, she could only handle dealing with one thing at a time, and since Bow was already here….

A lump started to form in her throat, and she swallowed it down with some effort before going to speak – only to have her mind go completely blank when she heard Bow say, “I’m sorry.” 

She had been nervous before; now she was just confused. With all the fear gone from her mind, Glimmer turned her head so that she could more easily face her friend. 

“What are you apologizing for?” she asked incredulously. She didn’t give him a chance to respond before continuing, “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

Now Bow looked about as confused as she felt, which had Glimmer thinking hard, trying to figure out what it was that he felt he needed to apologize for. Or, at least, what he thought he needed to apologize to her for – since it only made sense that if the apology was directed at her, it probably related to her in some way. 

But, no matter how hard she wracked her brain for an answer, she kept coming up empty-handed; she couldn’t think of a single issue between them, in recent memory, where she could even potentially see how he was in the wrong. She was still trying to make sense of his confusion when he interrupted her thoughts. 

“You wouldn’t have even been in the Fright Zone when that guy came if we didn’t have that fight, and that only happened because I lost my temper.” 

Glimmer’s heart sunk a little, both at being reminded of that argument between them – probably the worst fight they’d ever had in all the time they’d known each other – and at hearing Bow place so much of the blame for what happened on himself. 

“Bow, you didn’t –“ Glimmer paused, trying to think of how exactly she wanted to say what was on her mind; which also involved fully admitting to something that was painful to acknowledge. She shook her head and decided to just start over. “You getting angry at me…I deserved that.”

It was painful to admit that, to basically say that if he had decided that he wanted to end their friend, she couldn’t really protest too hard, because he wasn’t wrong to want that. “I tried to use our friendship to make you feel like you had to take my side, even though I wanted something that was so incredibly dangerous and stupid.” 

She had to resist the urge to wince when the words left her mouth. It was a harsh truth to face, even when she was the one pointing it out. The fact that Bow was staying silent didn’t help the horrible feeling going through her chest and into her gut. Then again, why would he say anything when he obviously had no reason to defend her? 

To her surprise, however, when she looked back at him, he didn’t look angry or like he was thinking she deserved to be beating herself up like she was doing. Instead, he just looked sad, and maybe a little…hurt? It was hard to tell exactly what the other emotion on his face was, but the sadness was clear. 

Now Glimmer was filled with her own conflicting emotions, being relieved that Bow didn’t seem to be angry despite everything that had happened but also distressed by how upset he obviously was, even if anger wasn’t a factor.

She wanted to ask him to say something, anything. Even if he yelled at her, it would be better than the anticipation the silence was bringing her; at least she could get it done and over with. 

Before she could voice her request, Bow suddenly wrapped his arms around her and held her tight, startling Glimmer enough that a small yelp escaped her lips before she could stop it. 

For a few seconds, she was too stunned to even move, but after the moment had passed, she slowly lifted her arms to embrace him back, tightening her hold almost as soon as her arms were wrapped around him. It wasn’t quite the near vice grip they’d had on each other back on the ship – there they had been so reluctant to let go that even when they’d forced the embrace to end, they refused to actually fully let go, clasping each other’s hand like a lifeline. 

This time, while Glimmer was still reluctant to let go, she still did without much hesitation when she felt Bow’s arms move away from her body. If only because she didn’t want to push her luck by being clingy, even if she really wanted to just keep holding onto him for hours, a small, irrational part of her worrying that if she let go, this would all turn out to be a dream – one she didn’t want to end. But, she still allowed her arms to move from around him as she waited to see what he would do – or say – next. 

“Well, it’s not like I was really that good of a friend to you since you had to become Queen.” Bow’s voice was soft, but Glimmer heard him loud and clear; it was hard to ignore a sound that you’d been waiting for. Especially when the words he said were practically the last thing she would have expected him to say in response to….anything that had happened between them in the past few moments. 

“What are you talking about?” Glimmer asked – or more like demanded, based on the tone of her voice as the question escaped her lips. She was just so completely baffled by what he’d just told her that it had come out much harsher than she had intended. 

“If I was actually a good friend, I would have been there for you when you really needed me,” he began, turning his head to look her in the eyes as he continued to speak. It was clear that the act was not done easily, but the archer seemed to think it was necessary, so he did it in spite of his clear unease. 

Glimmer could see tears in her friend’s eyes; she chose not to acknowledge them, at least not out loud. Instead she remained silent, though she did give him a somewhat confused look, as she still didn’t exactly understand what he was going on about. 

Bow took a breath and then continued with his explanation. 

“When your mom….when the whole thing with the portal happened, I knew I should have at least tried to talk to you about it. I had seen George go through that sort of thing when I was growing up, and I knew it was supposed to help if you talked about it – that was what my dads taught me.” 

He paused to take a breath, and then shook his head as he added, “But, instead I just decided that Adora had the right idea, and it was better to just try and pretend everything was okay, so you wouldn’t have to think about it….even though I knew you were.” 

Bow’s voice broke at that moment, and while he didn’t actually start crying, Glimmer could tell he was just barely managing to fall over the edge. She couldn’t help but smile a little at the sight, though it was definitely a sad smile. 

She honestly hadn’t even thought to consider that he could have been thinking about something like this. Then again, she hadn’t exactly had time to think about anything other than the fact that she now had the responsibility of trying to win a war and then the knowledge that her world was falling apart around her weighing down on her shoulders, for a while now. 

But now, as hard as it was to see him beating himself up about the choice he made, she couldn’t deny that part of her was just…touched that he had cared. 

Not that she should have been surprised; the idea that Bow of all people wouldn’t have cared about how she was feeling was hard to even consider. But, when everything was happening, when she had so much weighing down on her mind that she barely felt like she had a moment to breathe, much less think….It felt like she was alone, even when her best friends were by her side, even when they weren’t at each other’s throats, arguing. 

Now that she had a moment to breathe, even if she knew it was going to be brief, it all felt very different. It felt…unbelievably nice to just talk to her best friend again, without either of them getting angry or, in her case, trying to use their friendship to manipulate each other into doing something they knew was wrong….

Glimmer quickly swiped the heel of her hand over her eyes to stop any tears from forming. That was all done and over with, and even if she still felt bad, Bow had forgiven her and for right now, that was enough. 

There was still one thought that stuck in her mind, something that had been buried underneath a mountain of other worries until just this moment. Glimmer looked over at Bow, who’s eyes were a little watery but he wasn’t crying anymore. 

When she opened her mouth to speak, at first nothing came out, so she shut her mouth and tried again. The words came out this time, in barely more than a whisper: 

“…Can…you stay?” 

There were about a million other things she wanted to say at the moment, but those were the only words she could manage to get out; but even those three words held so many of the questions that were on her mind. If the look on Bow’s face was any indication, he knew how much more there was to what she had just said. 

“Yeah,” he said, speaking almost as quietly as she had a few seconds ago. He reached over and took her hand in his, rubbing the back of her hand gently with his thumb. “I’m not going anywhere, Glim. I’m not going to leave you alone again.”

The sound that escaped from her throat after hearing that was something between a laugh and a sob, and she quickly buried her face in his shoulder to muffle as she continued to cry, the pure relief being so overwhelming that she couldn’t even think about stopping the tears. 

Later, when she saw everyone else, she’d do her best to be strong, to be the best Queen and leader she could be during a time like this. When it was just her and Bow, she just wanted to hold onto him and cry for a bit; to not have to think about anything besides the fact that she was home again and she had him back and he really had forgiven her for everything she had said and done. 

Bow didn’t say anything about her tears wetting his shoulder. He didn’t say anything at all, actually – just held her close while she continued to sob. Glimmer raised her head slightly when she felt a couple drops of water fall onto her arm. 

“I missed you, too,” Bow said quietly, and she laughed again, even as fresh tears started to flow from her eyes. There was still a lot to be done, she knew, but right now, there was nothing else in the world she’d rather be doing.

**Author's Note:**

> Technically made as part of a long overdue prompt, but also written to somewhat address a problem I always had with the first episode of Season 4 - that being Bow's relative lack of apparent concern over how Glimmer was doing, and especially his lack of reaction to her breaking down in the caverns. I still love Bow and enjoy that episode overall, but I cannot deny that it felt...wrong that he basically just stood there while his best friend was obviously very upset and crying.


End file.
